No Longer Empty

Fahmina Ahmed

Summer 2010

Born in Astoria, Queens to parents who immigrated from Bangladesh, Fahmina went to Riverdale Country School, in Riverdale, Bronx and graduated 2009. She is currently a sophomore at Brown University, concentrating in architectural studies and visual arts. Fahmina was interested in No Longer Empty because it combined her interests in art and the built environment

Ionit Behar

Fall 2010

Ionit Behar earned a Bachelor of Art Theory from Tel Aviv University in Israel. She has also studied Management and Administration of Culture and Art in the Bank of Boston Foundation in Montevideo (Uruguay). She was also assistant curator of the departments of Modern Art, Africa and Judaica collection, for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Recently she performed similar tasks in the Haifa Museum of Art. Ionit feels honored to work as an intern in No Longer Empty. She is mostly attracted by NLE's philosophy, one of movement, change, and transformation in which art and space become one.

Julie Bell

Fall 2011

Julie Bell earned her Masters in Education, specializing in art education from The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at The University of Toronto. During her studies, she became interested in public art and its potential social impact in a community. Teaching art for seven years at The Mabin School, a progressive independent school in Toronto, she has integrated community-building art projects into her curriculum. Her passion for working with young artists is guided by a process-oriented approach, which encourages students to develop awareness, artistic expression and perception, through a practice of inquiry, exploration and problem-solving. Julie recently moved to New York and quickly became interested in NLE’s mission to redefine public art through temporary site-specific exhibitions. Julie's focus at NLE is to assist in developing the organization's educational programming that engages children into meaningful and interactive experiences, helping to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of art within their community.

Ali Burnstein

Summer 2010

Ali Burstein is a senior Philosophy major at Wesleyan University and is working toward a concentration in Aesthetics and Modern and Contemporary Art History. Burstein came to NLE with an interest in the ways that art interacts with and gains meaning from its exhibition environment. In particular, she joined the team in order to learn about and explore alternate approaches for displaying art and connecting with the public. She has assisted with the installation of shows, gallery sitting shifts, and curatorial research and projects.

Maria Escudero

Fall 2010

As a recent graduate from Wheaton College, Maria Escudero stumbled upon No Longer Empty as a place to successfully integrate her studies in Studio Art and Art History. Inspired by the organization’s progressive vision of empty space, Maria has works a curatorial assistant. Through this position, she has re-evaluated her own creative process and gotten a new understanding of how artistic practices today shape urban culture.

Kait Gaiss

Summer 2011

Kait Gaiss is a junior at Duke University majoring in Public Policy and Markets and Management Studies. At NLE, she will be involved in essentially everything, getting a strong hold on what it means to effectively run a nonprofit arts organization. In particular, she is interested in financial development, public programming, and creating a more dynamic relationship connecting NLE to the local communities surrounding our work. She will also be working to better understand and realize both the intangible and measurable benefits of public art, urban planning, and their relations to policy.

Lauryn Gerstle

Winter 2011

Lauryn Gerstle had been interning as a photographer for No Longer Empty since the beginning of 2011. Raised in L.A., Lauryn has spent most of her life traveling from Lisbon to Tokyo and lived in a bevy of locations – Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, France, Honolulu and currently moved to Brooklyn, New York. Lauryn arrived in New York last Fall, after a month long train trip across the United States. She is currently living in Brooklyn, doing freelance photography work, and will begin her Master's in Digital Photography at SVA in the Fall.

Patra Jongjitirat

Winter 2011 to 2012

Patra, receiving her degree in Architectural Studies from Brown University, harbors a great love for cities and their potential to be sustainable, poetic, and connective environments. At No Longer Empty she focuses on the implications of its arts model for the revitalization of neighborhoods and issues in urban planning. Outside of NLE, she devotes her time to Future Green Studio, a design-build firm specializing in green roofs, and to her work as a dancer and choreographer.

Madeleine LeMieux

Winter 2010

Madeleine LeMieux is a Chicago native attending NYU to receive her MA in Visual Arts Administration. She joined No Longer Empty in November 2009 as a Press and Development Intern. Madeleine helped to organize press databases, design a development process for NLE and assisted in writing a handful of grants for Weaving In and Out and The Sixth Borough.

Selina Lee

Summer 2010

Selina Lee is a senior at Mount Holyoke College. She interned with No Longer Empty because she was drawn to their mission and approach. She loves the way this new organization approaches public art and community outreach, being both humble and forward-thinking. Lee engaged the public at Weaving In and Out at Tapestry in East Harlem or The Sixth Borough in Governors Island. Lee also worked on the binder project, in which interns conducted research and compiled photos on the area, artists, and exhibitiont relating to the first year of NLEs history.

Dylan Lustrin

Summer 2011

Dylan Lustrin is a junior at Skidmore College majoring in Art History. Interested in modern design and contemporary art, Dylan was drawn to No Longer Empty’s mission of both expanding the audience for art through their exhibitions and investigating the public's interaction with art. At NLE, Dylan assisted in web development, marketing, and exhibition-based research.

Lucy Lydon has recently returned to New York after receiving an MA in History of Art and Classical Studies from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Writing her dissertation on portraiture in contemporary street art, Lucy is interested in how urban spaces effect considerations of communal and individual identity. No Longer Empty's holistic mission of developing exhibitions in, around, and because of spaces is an inspiring and progressive example of how public art can be engaging, provocative and socially constructive.

Christina Milan

Winter 2010

Christina Milan earned her Bachelors Degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick with a double major in History and Art History. After graduation she spent time in Washington DC working as both the Assistant Director of Numark Art Advisory and an exhibitions assistant at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Christina moved to New York City to pursue a Masters Degree in Visual Arts Administration from the NYU Steinhardt School. During her time in NYC she has built experience in administration, press, marketing, and arts management. When she is not synthesizing her talents as an Assistant Curator with No Longer Empty, she is working as an Artist Assistant for Kurt Perschke's RedBall Project.

Natalie Nielsen

Summer 2010

Natalie Nielsen is a junior at Vassar College majoring in Art History and Anthropology. Nielsen loved NLE's mission to re-define public art and open art to new audiences. But as an intern, what really attracted me was its emphasis on intern development. The core team really cared about fostering interests and giving us a valuable experience. Though Nielsen helped with installation, Nielsen primarily researched artists and concepts for potential upcoming exhibitions and later helped compile information for an NLE retrospective catalogue.

Joanna Roberts

Winter 2011

Joanna Roberts just moved to New York City from New Orleans where she was the Program Coordinator for the Porch 7th Ward Cultural Organization. She studied "Art for Social Change" at Brown University and is most passionate about the ways collaborative arts strengthen existing communities and create powerful new ones. She is very excited to be a part of No Longer Empty's programming team.

Emily Sloss

Summer 2010

Emily Sloss is a recent Duke University graduate, who interned with NLE in summer 2010 to fulfill her internship requirement for her degree in Public Policy. Emily's chose to work with NLE primarily due to her interest in urban planning, policy and design, but also because of her passion for public art. During the summer she worked with the two exhibits "The Sixth Borough" and "Weaving In and Out" as well as researched the economic and policy implications of revitalizing empty spaces through public art.

Chloe Wyma

Summer 2011

A Los Angeles native, Chloe graduated from Barnard College in May 2011 with a major in Art History, and is interested in the intersections between art and urban space. Chloe has previously interned at Art in America magazine and galleries in New York and Los Angeles, as is excited to be currently volunteering with NLE as a Curatorial Assistant. 

Limor Zisbrod

Summer 2010

Limor Zisbrod is a junior at Washington University in St. Louis majoring in Communication Design and Art History. Limor was drawn to NLE's mission to redefine public art and its efforts to conduct community outreach. She worked closely with a team of graphic designers to create wall signage and flyers. Additionally, she served shifts of gallery sitting at both "The Sixth Borough" and "Weaving In and Out" exhibits, allowing her to interact with the community and the artists.

Caroline Bauer

Spring 2010

Caroline Bauer is currently pursuing her Masters in Urban Planning at Columbia University with a concentration in International Development. She received her Bachelors from Mount Holyoke College in 2009, where she studied anthropology and philosophy and fostered her passion for visual art, curatorial practice and women's colleges. Caroline was Program Coordinator for the 2010 Weaving In & Out exhibit in East Harlem and Assistant Curator for the 2010 The Sixth Borough exhibit on Governor's Island. As Program Coordinator, Caroline organized a 24-hour draw-a-thon streamed live between Puerto Rico and NYC. Though she is no longer with No Longer Empty, she is thankful for the difference NLE is bringing to NYC's depressed street scape & everybody's tireless work!